


the long way around

by honey_wheeler



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 21:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6166810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peace is a strange thing. Leia is so used to rushing, to hiding, to pushing feelings aside for more important things. She’s used to stolen kisses and touching that’s meant for comfort in lousy situations, rather than pleasure in good ones. Having time to kiss, to touch and feel and explore, is an unexpected luxury and she finds it almost overwhelms her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the long way around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pennylane4](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennylane4/gifts).



> Written for **pennylane4** , on the glorious occasion of her birth.

Peace is a strange thing. Leia is so used to rushing, to hiding, to pushing feelings aside for more important things. She’s used to stolen kisses and touching that’s meant for comfort in lousy situations, rather than pleasure in good ones. Having time to kiss, to touch and feel and explore, is an unexpected luxury and she finds it almost overwhelms her.

“You’re avoiding me.” He picks a fight in front of everyone, as is typical for Han. No one pays them the slightest bit of attention, as is typical for them. The whole Rebel Alliance has plenty of practice in carrying on around them, no matter what they’re doing. Leia can’t deny it feels safer, having other people around, having distractions. Without the driving forces of duty and missions and noble purpose to temper her, Han is almost more than she can bear. More solid, more tempting, more...just _more_. She thinks she might just fall into him and never even want to climb out, even if she were able to. It’s only that she’s never felt so safe with anyone else. It’s frightening in how little it’s not frightening at all.

“Of course I’m not,” she snaps. “I’m talking to you right now.”

“Sure, after I chased you all over the damn ship,” he spits back, his finger pointed accusingly at her face. With any other man, she’d bristle at such a peremptory gesture. With Han, it’s just a marker of how much he cares about her. How much she gets under his skin. How much he’s under hers.

“Well, you’ve got me now.” She can’t decide what to do with her arms. Crossed over her chest, hands on her hips, god, she wishes this stupid fucking uniform flightsuit thing had pockets. “What is it?”

“What is it?” he asks, incredulous. “What is it? You left my bunk this morning like your ass was on fire, that’s what.”

Leia flinches. He’s not lying. She’d woken up in his arms, his chest pillowing her cheek, feeling as rested as if she’d slept a hundred hours instead of barely any. Remembering what they’d done in the night makes her cheeks heat and warmth pool low in her belly. It had been too much. It had been _everything_. 

“If you want me to be like some cheap trick you picked up in the outer rim, well I’ll...” Han trails off, his forehead beetling into a frown so confused and puppyish that Leia wants to smooth it with a thousand kisses.

“You’ll what?”

“I’ll do it,” he says, visibly deflating into a slump against the corridor wall and taking her completely off-guard. “If that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”

“Han.” She takes a propulsive step towards him, only to be brushed back by a pack of R2s rolling through in a flurry of beeps and whistles, off to do who knows what in who knows where.

“I wanted you to stay,” he says once they’ve gone. “I still want you to stay. But I’ll do whatever you want.”

Leia had always thought it hurt when your heart breaks. She didn’t know that your heart could break in a good way. In the best way imaginable.

“I was scared,” she says. She doesn’t offer any explanation because she doesn’t think she has one, but he doesn’t seem to need it.

“I know, Princess.” There’s such strength in him, a different kind of strength than she has. A strength that maybe complements her own, if only she can meet it head-on.

“I’ll stay,” she says, deciding in an instant. “Tomorrow. Tonight. Whenever you want.” _Whenever you’ll have me_ , she thinks, but she’ll keep that for another day.

His mouth kicks up into that grin of his, one that manages to be both disbelieving and cocky. They smile at each other across the corridor, droids and soldiers moving between them, everything whirring with the bustle of freedom and victory and time, and Leia thinks that even being scared is better when she does it with him.


End file.
